necessaryandsufficient

Is anyone planning on declining UMich or USC?

Thank you!! I received it at 2:45PM EST. It was one of those "The status of your application has been updated" type emails.

Accepted to Columbia with a fellowship offer!

I have hidden LinkedIn views from someone with the title "University Professor." Hmm...

I go to a regional nonelite state school and so far I have been admitted to a T10 (according to the updated rankings, at least) and one that's just outside T20 (both of these are also public schools). It's also worth noting that I've had the opportunity to do some intensive philosophical work at elite institutions through a summer program and through studying abroad, and I sought out both of those experiences in part because I knew I would be at a disadvantage applying from a school like mine. But I agree, it's really frustrating to see my peers from non-prestigious schools struggle when I know it would have been much easier for them had they gone to a prestigious undergraduate institution.

It was me! Very excited. Not sure if they've sent out others.

Update: I got in anyway.

Claiming it. There was also at least one other one today that I saw on the Facebook group and they said funding details would come in early March. I'm still speechless honestly! Also guessing that more offers will come out in batches as they have in years past (based on the results page)

If it makes you feel better, for one school I wrote down a certain prof as a POI and his retirement was announced about a month before I submitted my application (but he was still listed on the website). I worded my interest in him in rather weak terms considering how old he was, but still...

It might just be that there are a lot of lurkers and people who worry about compromising their anonymity. There are already over 300 views on this thread. If say 100 of those hits are duplicate views and 200 are unique viewers, that seems about right if the application pool at most schools tends to be in the 300-400 range.

Oh, I don't disagree at all–it's not like journal articles have to be written in thirty minutes. I was just speculating in response to the earlier comment.

I haven't seen it, but programs presumably know that the writing samples (or some) have been heavily edited with lots of feedback. Some programs might view the AW as your "raw ability" (i.e., the quality of your writing and logical reasoning when you have to evaluate/make an argument in 30 minutes). I don't think it matters much since the writing sample is far more important, but I can see why a score above 5 might strike some adcoms as impressive.

I went to a panel with two DGAs at top schools who said that contacting professors prior to applying really isn't necessary (unless you have genuine questions about the program, their work, etc.). They said that they expect your interests to change when you go through two years of coursework and that it can look presumptuous–particularly for undergrads–to act like you know what you'll write your dissertation on before even doing any graduate coursework (and by this, I mean behavior beyond saying whose work you're interested in/who you might be interested in working with in the SoP). One of them described the application as being an application to a department rather than to a particular faculty member. I'm sure this attitude varies from school to school, but perhaps this will be helpful to someone.

I bet most of us have at least one typo, especially in the earlier applications. I've had multiple pairs of eyes on everything and still had a couple of small ones I only realized on the third application.

I've done my first four out of sixteen, thank goodness. I don't have to worry about any others until the end of the semester. I'm hoping I'll be able to submit all of my applications before January.